Hot Topics:

Dept. of Health: Near overdose is lesson in saving lives

Posted:
08/26/2014 05:10:52 PM MDT

I can vividly remember that day in February 2012.

A college-aged kid stormed into my office.

"A girl is overdosing in the parking lot, she needs help!"

I made two stops on my way out the door. One to a nurse at our clinic, asking her to grab a vial of Narcan (Naloxone); the other to the clerk on duty at the registration desk to call 911. It all happened in under a minute.

I ran out of the building with the kid who had alerted me. He led me to a car where there was a young woman slouched over in the passenger seat, gray colored, snoring, with a second friend yelling at her to wake up.

The second friend told me she was overdosing on heroin. I immediately started a sternum rub and started talking to her to see where she was in the overdose. She was unresponsive to everything; her lips were turning blue and her breaths were becoming shallow.

As I began to turn her to start rescue breathing, the nurse showed up with the vial of Narcan. The nurse administered the intranasal Narcan, and in about one minute, the young lady started to wake up, slowly, but on her own.

Ever since that day, I have a different view on overdose awareness. The best way I can now explain stages of overdose is by using the Star Wars saga.

Advertisement

If you recall, George Lucas brilliantly started the series with chapter 4, the sequels being chapters 5 and 6. Then he ended the series years later with the back story of how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader in Chapters 1, 2 and 3. If you perceive a drug overdose as Chapter 4, then you can realize that there has to be a back-story or events leading up to that chapter.

The New Mexico Department of Health provides Harm Reduction services for individuals who are in the perceived Chapters 1, 2 or 3 of overdose awareness. A service that DOH offers is the syringe exchange program, where anyone can bring in used syringes in exchange for new syringes. The used ones are disposed of properly and mainly kept out of the community.

Another program is Overdose Prevention Training and Narcan distribution. This program instructs people on the 1997 Harm Reduction Act that was passed for a person to assist a person overdosing, protected by the Good Samaritan Law, to provide rescue breathing and administer Narcan until paramedics can arrive.

People are trained on how to administer both rescue breathing and intranasal Narcan. The goal of the Harm Reduction Specialist is that they can reduce risk for persons seeking assistance and ultimately eliminate the production of the Chapter 4 movie in their life.

In 2013, the Department of Health's Harm Reduction Program reported that there were 3,602 Narcan kits dispensed with 708 reported overdose reversals. Reversals meaning that the Narcan was used and the person who was overdosing was revived. Currently in 2014 (up to June), there had already been 2,524 Narcan kits dispensed with 406 reported overdose reversals.

Drug overdose happens everywhere. The stigma of drug overdose is usually seen as an illicit drug user that has an addiction. But overdose can happen to anyone taking any kind of drug.

The Department of Health's effort is paying off: New data reveals the rate of drug overdose deaths among New Mexico residents has fallen by 16 percent from 2011 to 2013. That's the lowest rate since 2009.

Luckily for Star Wars, the back-story was shared and everyone experienced the knowledge of how actions came to be. Unfortunately for overdose death, the back-story will never be re-told.

Travis Leyva, regional disease prevention program manager, may be reached at 575-528-5031 or Travis.Leyva@state.nm.us. The New Mexico Department of Health New Mexico Department of Health can also be found online at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn, Pintrest, and Instagram.

ODESSA, Texas (AP) — A West Texas man has been charged with impersonating an officer by using sirens and flashing lights to skip to the head of the drive-thru line at a fast-food restaurant. Full Story

Sufjan Stevens, "Carrie & Lowell" (Asthmatic Kitty) Plucked strings and pulsing keyboards dominate the distinctive arrangements on Sufjan Stevens' latest album, and in the absence of a rhythm section, they serve to keep time. Full Story